Patton: Bachmann Knows Her Constitution

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann has proven once more that she is no lightweight in the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. But you are not likely to hear that view from any of the vacuous talking heads on the network news. It doesn’t fit their template.

Bachmann is currently neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney among likely Iowa GOP voters. She has made a professional case for herself, and shown that she has the stuff to take on Barack Obama in next year’s campaign. But the more viable she shows herself to be, the more reviled she will be by the professional left, which continues to make fun of her no matter what she does, much the same as they have done for the last three years with Sarah Palin. They call her “stupid” and worse.

Of course, most of the national media tend to chime right in with their usual inane non-analysis, the kind they always reserve for conservatives they fear and, hence, despise. I predict that they will attack, malign and mock the Minnesota congresswoman for being “inconsistent” or “hypocritical” or “talking out of both sides of her mouth.”

The venue was Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace’s questions were designed to make him appear tough on the Republican candidate, but his demeanor seemed deliberately obtuse. The issue was same-sex marriage, and the question from Wallace was whether Rep. Bachmann favored the right of states to pass their own laws regarding marriage or a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man with one woman.

Bachmann said she supported both, which Wallace admitted confused him. He pressed her again to make a choice. Again she stated the constitutional answer.